Too Early, Too Late
by Uozumi
Summary: Somewhere out there exists a Leonard McCoy who never became a doctor and a James Kirk who never became a captain of anything.


**Fandom** Star Trek TOS/Star Trek AOS (neither really, but the characters within a different universe)  
**Character(s)/Pairing(s)** Kirk, McCoy. Take the pairing as you will.  
**Genre** Alternate Universe/Drabble/General  
**Rating** PG  
**Word Count** 1064  
**Disclaimer** Star Trek c. Paramount, CBS, NBC, Roddenberry.  
**Summary** Somewhere out there exists a Leonard McCoy who never became a doctor and a James Kirk who never became a captain of anything.  
**Warning(s)** None  
**Notes** So, I had this image in my head (which I'll eventually get around to drawing) of Kirk and McCoy as present day humans crossing paths for the first time at a Star Trek convention. The image was eating at me so badly I kind of turned it into a fic to assuage myself until I'm able to draw it. So I guess you could call this alternate reality Trekkie verse even though McCoy isn't really much of one? This is kind of a drabble that got longer than I originally thought it would.

_**Too Early, Too Late**_

Somewhere out there exists a Leonard H. McCoy who never became a doctor. Oh, he entertained the idea, but his Geometry grades sent off warning shots, and his Algebra II grades just nailed any hopes of upper level math skills into a neat little wooden coffin. Somewhere out there exists a James Tiberius Kirk who never became a captain of anything. He pretended to be a great military man at recess, sending those Commies right back where they came from. Yet, after a while, there were no more "Commies" because Russia was a democracy and China was something his father did not understand enough to rant and rave upon as he did when James was small. Without any clear real world enemies, the war games soon morphed into super hero adventures.

Leonard fell into the crowd without realizing. Before he knew it, he was following his friends to conventions and other places. They appreciated his commentary on whatever walked past them and his willingness to comment when they were about to blow their savings on something they would just sell on Ebay. He watched the show only in their company and harbored a secret fascination with some aspects of the idea of aliens existing. If he had no interest, he world have found another group of friends to spend his teenage years with instead. He never went to the annual local convention in costume. He saw no need to dress up in some garish color and interact with people on a level that would mean noting if they were to meet in a week on the street in normal clothing. Yet, the group of friends grew older and eventually there came a time where their annual fantasy would cease. Some were getting married, some were paying loans, and real life would have to replace fantasy. That was the year Leonard found himself dressed in a shiny blue t-v-neck t-shirt with a black undershirt and matching slacks and boots.

"You're our doctor, Len," one of his friends told him, tapping the gold shape on the left breast of the shiny blue t-shirt. "Even if you're majoring in education, you always know something medical."

James fell in love with the concept long before he encountered the franchise about aliens across the universe, even before he knew there were other people out there just like him who were born too early. The bespectacled youth did not need cajoling to agree to go to a convention. If anything, it was ludicrous to him that he sat out on the first one his friends ever went to, but his mother was reticent to send her child into a throng of adults who were "still caught up in a fantasy world they should have left long ago." He was the ringleader of his little group of friends and a key player in larger groups of friends and acquaintances. His high school years found him in the student council, the chess club, and the Science Fiction Association (which was just another club). In two weeks, he and most of his longest known friends would graduate high school and go their separate ways. The Science Fiction Association were sponsoring a non-school sanctioned trip to the convention in the nearest large city.

"So what do you think?" James asked a friend who was trying to transform their ears into something more pointed with stage makeup. "Do I look like the chief of security?"

His friend frowned at the homemade ear tip that kept falling into his palm instead of staying affixed to his ear. "Sure, Jim."

There were many groups out there just like theirs, the same four or five characters from the series that started this whole mess. Leonard felt ridiculous until he saw another person wandering around in the same shiny get up he wore and immediately felt even more ridiculous than before. Yet, as always, he managed to find something fun out of the nerdfest or geekfest or whatever this was. He had to admit that seeing the actors from the franchise was probably one of the more interesting parts of these things. It was fascinating to see how people aged over time and who faired better than others did. Leonard immerged from a room where an actor's panel was winding down and looked to his left even though there was no reason to do so.

"I heard he was going to be here!" one of the girls in the group James' was hanging with gushed. James nodded and tuned her out. He was more interested in the costumes and the people around them than the actors were. Yeah it was interested to hear stories about whatever happened on whatever set, but almost eight years after his first exposure, James still was more interested in the concept. Sometimes he felt cheated living in a world where you could not just go out there and see other planets and worlds and life forms. Yet, with his atrocious driving record, he doubted even if this fantasy could become reality, they would let him anywhere near the technology to live that dream.

"Damn." James' friend with the homemade ear tips caught one of the offending prosthetics in his hand. "They will not stay on. Illogical…."

James turned his head to his left to hide his facial expression. It was not that he found his friends' plight humorous, but his friend thought himself a serious method actor even at this place, so the sentiment expressed in a dispassionate monotone was amusing compared to the frustrated complaining earlier in the week.

When James raised his eyes from the floor up, they stopped on Leonard's gaze as the older man immerged from the room James' group was heading towards. Neither looked away, both experiencing a seemingly mutual brain freeze, though their feet kept moving. They passed close enough that either could have touched the other, could have even said something or offered even a small nod. Yet no movement or verbal exchange transpired. As the sideways glances became a look over the shoulder, James almost walked into the girl in front of him, and Leonard sneezed a sneeze so violent, he felt his nose sting.

"Are you alright?" their pointy-eared companions asked, the groups far enough apart that their mutual question could not be heard by their counterpart.

"I…think so," came a shared, dazed response.

**The End**


End file.
